SECRET OF WORK - NO ONE IS INFERIOR

I do not believe in reform; I  believe in growth. I  do not dare to put myself in the position of God and dedicate to our society, “This way thou should move and not that.” I simply want to be squirrel in building of Rama’s  bridge, who was quite content to put on the bridge his little quota of sand dust. This is my position.

NO WORK IS INFERIOR

There is, however ,one great danger in human nature, viz. That man never examines himself. He thinks he is quite as fit to be on the throne as the king. Even if he is, he must first show that he has done the duty of his own position; and then higher duties will come to him. When  we begin to work earnestly in the world , nature gives us blows right and left and soon enables us to find out our position. No  man can long occupy satisfactorily a position for which he is not fit. There is no use in grumbling against nature’s adjustment. He who does the lower work in it not therefore a lower man. No man is to be judged by the mere nature of his duties , but all should be judged by the manner and the spirit in which they perform.

Later on we shall find that even this idea of duty undergoes change, and that the greatest work is done only when there is no selfish motive to prompt it. Yet it is work through the sense of duty that leads us to work without any idea of duty; when work will become worship –nay; something higher- then will work be done for its own sake.

Duty is seldom sweet. It is only when love greases its wheel that it runs smoothly; it is a continuous friction otherwise. How else could parents do their duties to their children, husbands to their wives, and vice versa? Do we not meet with these cases of friction every day in our lives? Duty is sweet only through love, and love shines in freedom alone. Yet is it freedom to be a slave to the senses, to anger, to jealousies and a hundred other pretty things that must occur every day in human life? In all these little roughness that we meet with a life, the highest expression of freedom is to forebear.

BE LIKE THE SQUIRREL:  The monkeys removed whole hills , placed them in the sea and covered them with stones and tress, thus making a huge embankment. A little squirrel, so it is said, was there rolling himself in the sand and running backwards and forwards on to the bridge and shaking himself. Thus in his small way he was working for the bridge of Rama by putting in sand. The monkeys laughed, for they  were bringing whole mountains , whole forests, huge loads of sand for the bridge – so  they laughed at the little squirrel rolling in the sand and then shaking himself. But Rama saw it remarked : “Blessed be the little squirrel;  he is doing his work to the best of his ability, and he is therefore quite as great as the greatest of you”. Then  he gently stroked the squirrel on the back, and the Rama’s fingers, running lengthy ways, are seen on the squirrel’s back to this day.